KOTA KINABALU: Sabah government assures adequate supply of rice despite claims that rice stock in the market is critically low.
State Agriculture and Food Industry minister Datuk Junz Wong said that the government had plans on sustaining the supply.
He was responding to a message that went viral claiming that “rice stock (is) getting critical, we didn’t invest enough in the production of this precious commodity in the past. We might have to resort to producing rice-like products made from starch soon.”
“There is no issue here. Don’t worry. We are going to be okay.
“We have months of reserves and we are planning to stockpile more in Sabah on our own, just in case,” Wong said.
He added that most importantly people should not be panic buying or it would cause problems to the availability of rice in the market.
"If there is any problem with supply, it could be due to logistics and not because of (shortage of) stock."
Sabah Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs director Georgie Abas also gave assurance of the availability of stock for consumers.
“I recall a couple of days ago, Padiberas Nasional Berhad (Bernas) informed Sabah government that it has ready stock for at least four months,” he told the New Straits Times.
On average, the population in Sabah consumes about 25,000 tonnes of rice a month.
At present, Bernas has about 50,000 tonnes of rice in its warehouses and expects 16,000 tonnes coming in.
About 30 per cent of the state's demands come from local producers.